How long would it take the Nuggets to become relevant again? Could be a lengthy process

If the Carmelo Anthony-to-New Jersey trade goes through, the biggest thing the Nuggets will have accomplished is salary cap relief. The expiring contracts of Andrei Kirilenko, Kenyon Martin and J.R. Smith add up to more than $40 million worth.

That, and they did get what is projected by many to be a player with solid potential in rookie forward Derek Favors.

So it’s reload time, right? No so fast.

There’s a lot of cap space, to be sure. But where will it be used? In the near future, it doesn’t appear anywhere that instantly vaults the Nuggets back among the Western Conference’s elite teams. Those types of players were on the market this summer and are now gone with very slim pickings left for the next couple of years, at least. Taking the NBA’s labor strife out of the equation as a factor affecting free agency and the following season, this is the list of notable unrestricted free agents next summer:

That’s the list. Not a ton to write home about. The best free agent next summer would have been, wait for it… Carmelo Anthony, provided he opted out of the final year of his contract. As for the rest, clearly the best player is Ming, but there is no guarantee he’ll even make it through this season. A foot injury cost him all of last season and this time around it’s already been reported the career 19.1 ppg, 9.3 rpg big man will only play 24 minutes per game and probably sit out the second of back-to-back games as well. Not an encouraging sign for Houston this season, much less any team that wants to take a flier on him by signing him to a multi-year deal in the summer if the Rockets don’t extend his contract first.

So then that leaves the draft. It’s important to note that a first rounder coming to the Nuggets in 2012 is a protected pick 1-7. Golden State originally traded it to New Jersey last season in exchange for guard Marcus Williams. So, if Golden State finds itself back in the lottery and the ping pong balls fall the Warriors way anywhere in that range, the Nuggets don’t get the pick; Golden State keeps it. It’s usually on a sliding scale, so the protected range shrinks and at some point in the future the pick becomes unprotected, but that could be three, four years down the road. Golden State finished way outside of the playoffs last season, and in a tough Western Conference may find itself on the outside, looking-in again – even though its two years into the future – which means the Nuggets will have to wait a while before this pick can be used.

Now, there are good young players on the horizon; the first name fans need to get familiar with this college basketball season is North Carolina superfrosh Harrison Barnes, projected by everyone to be the first pick in 2011 draft should he declare. The problem is if you’re not in the top 5 of the lottery, it’s hard to guarantee a star to add to the nucleus. But in case the Nuggets falter enough in the next couple of seasons that they find themselves in the lottery and are lucky enough to get a fortuitous ping pong ball bounce, here are some names to keep an eye on in terms of players that have a chance to be big-time game changers on the NBA level…

This will not be a painless process. It may not even be a simple one. The Nuggets road back will take equal parts savvy personnel moves and simple luck in the draft. And none of what was mentioned above factors in possible losses of point guard Chauncey Billups, whose contract is up in two seasons, and coach George Karl, who may look at the future of the franchise and decide nurturing a rebuilding team isn’t how he wants to wind down his career. All of this is why the stakes were so high in keeping Anthony in Denver.

Now, from front office staff to players to fans, it appears what’s needed most is a Grand Canyon-sized amount of patience.

How long to be relevant “again”?? Please – I’m a lifelong Rockets/Nuggets fan from back in the ABA days. Let’s face it – this team has never been truly “relevant” unless you consider making the Western Conference Finals once every 20 years relevant!

BigDogBlue

How long to be relevant “again”?? Please – I’m a lifelong Rockets/Nuggets fan from back in the ABA days. Let’s face it – this team has never been truly “relevant” unless you consider making the Western Conference Finals once every 20 years relevant!

808

Excellent piece, Chris. I’m hopeful Kirilenko can stay healthy and the Nuggets can make one more solid run. He is an interesting acquisition which enables them to almost completely change their personality with his defensive presence. Let’s hope he can be effective and stay on the court.

You make a great point about cap space only being valuable if you can turn it into winning players. Looking at your free agent list the most attractive may be Nene.

Thanks for the well thought out post. It’s nice to see someone looking beyond today. Thanks to Carmelo as well. Seven years went so fast, lots of great memories. I wish him the best in NJ.

808

Excellent piece, Chris. I’m hopeful Kirilenko can stay healthy and the Nuggets can make one more solid run. He is an interesting acquisition which enables them to almost completely change their personality with his defensive presence. Let’s hope he can be effective and stay on the court.

You make a great point about cap space only being valuable if you can turn it into winning players. Looking at your free agent list the most attractive may be Nene.

Thanks for the well thought out post. It’s nice to see someone looking beyond today. Thanks to Carmelo as well. Seven years went so fast, lots of great memories. I wish him the best in NJ.

RocknRule

Allow me, then, to be the first to announce his intention – – – to abandon ship!

RocknRule

Allow me, then, to be the first to announce his intention – – – to abandon ship!

Basketball

Who is Perry Barnes?
Derek Favors and Kylie Irving?
Gimme a break!
Study more before writing something.

DH

Chris, You are assuming that we’ll hold on to KMart, Kirilenko, and J.R. for the whole year (thus creating the cap space you talk about). Who says we can’t acquire some really nice players, and possibly more draft picks, near the trade deadline using one or more of those expiring contracts? And if we can pull that off, who says we can’t re-sign Chauncey at a lower salary? Or we could trade Chauncey to a contender during the season and get a very nice return. So we could have Nene, Favors, Birdman, Harrington, Chauncey (or the player we got for him in a trade), Lawson, Afflalo, and maybe two or more good players (let’s say a solid center and a starting small forward) acquired in mid-season trades, and we would still have some cap room and several first-round picks over the next few years. I don’t think things are necessarily as gloomy as you make them out to be.

DH

Chris, You are assuming that we’ll hold on to KMart, Kirilenko, and J.R. for the whole year (thus creating the cap space you talk about). Who says we can’t acquire some really nice players, and possibly more draft picks, near the trade deadline using one or more of those expiring contracts? And if we can pull that off, who says we can’t re-sign Chauncey at a lower salary? Or we could trade Chauncey to a contender during the season and get a very nice return. So we could have Nene, Favors, Birdman, Harrington, Chauncey (or the player we got for him in a trade), Lawson, Afflalo, and maybe two or more good players (let’s say a solid center and a starting small forward) acquired in mid-season trades, and we would still have some cap room and several first-round picks over the next few years. I don’t think things are necessarily as gloomy as you make them out to be.

WW

Doesn’t the #1 pick that keeps getting mentioned belong to Golden State? Also, keep reading that there are “multiple #1s” in the deal for Denver.

WW

Doesn’t the #1 pick that keeps getting mentioned belong to Golden State? Also, keep reading that there are “multiple #1s” in the deal for Denver.

AK47

Congarts Denver you getting healhty and motivated AK in contract year! Enjoy it, I bet you will forget about Carmelo after first game when you beat Jazz. Jazz office are really stupid greedy money savers to make this move, thye do not care about winning at all. LOL making their division rival better and filling roster spots with washed out veterans? Watch DWILL bolting to Dallas in 2012.

AK47

Congarts Denver you getting healhty and motivated AK in contract year! Enjoy it, I bet you will forget about Carmelo after first game when you beat Jazz. Jazz office are really stupid greedy money savers to make this move, thye do not care about winning at all. LOL making their division rival better and filling roster spots with washed out veterans? Watch DWILL bolting to Dallas in 2012.

DP

Probably never. Nuggets management is running this franchise as a business. No NBA superstar will ever want to come here. Even if he did, he would probably want out like the others.

DP

Probably never. Nuggets management is running this franchise as a business. No NBA superstar will ever want to come here. Even if he did, he would probably want out like the others.

Glorilin307

Amazing, this Nuggets “braintrust.” As an Orlando fan in South Florida I can only scratch my head and wonder why Denver refuses a trade with the Bulls because their center, Noah, isn’t included. Forget Noah, an energy guy, who needs players like Derrick Rose and Carlos Boozer to really shine. The Bulls would offer two starting forwards to the Nuggets: Deng, a solid 18 points and 9 rebounds a game with solid defense, as well as the upcoming and solid, Taj Gibson who was the biggest surprise with the Bulls last year. He played as if he were a top 5 draft pick: super defender and rebounder and averaged about 9 points a game as a 1st year player. Just a very, very good starter in this league. In addition, the Bulls have their 1st round draft pick, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, THEY HOLD Charlotte’s unprotected 1st round pick in a few years and everyone ( except the Nuggets) knows that Charlotte is becomming the worst franchise in the league…”old talent” and an owner ( Jordan) who will not spend the $$$$ on this team. No free agents will go to Charlotte and they will stink!!!
Nuggets are looking at a top 3 pick and the Bulls will give this up to get Melo. Also, Asik, the Turkish 7 foot center from Turkey has rights held by the Bulls. Yes, he is a miserable free throw center, but he is the starting center for Turkey whom the US beat a few weeks ago in the world championships, and he is young. Glad I’m not a Nuggets fan or I would scream at the thought of giving up Melo for “cap relief” in the form of Kirilenco without any major free agents available in the future. Denver fans, it looks like ownership merely wants to save $$$$$$$…sorry!

Glorilin307

Amazing, this Nuggets “braintrust.” As an Orlando fan in South Florida I can only scratch my head and wonder why Denver refuses a trade with the Bulls because their center, Noah, isn’t included. Forget Noah, an energy guy, who needs players like Derrick Rose and Carlos Boozer to really shine. The Bulls would offer two starting forwards to the Nuggets: Deng, a solid 18 points and 9 rebounds a game with solid defense, as well as the upcoming and solid, Taj Gibson who was the biggest surprise with the Bulls last year. He played as if he were a top 5 draft pick: super defender and rebounder and averaged about 9 points a game as a 1st year player. Just a very, very good starter in this league. In addition, the Bulls have their 1st round draft pick, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, THEY HOLD Charlotte’s unprotected 1st round pick in a few years and everyone ( except the Nuggets) knows that Charlotte is becomming the worst franchise in the league…”old talent” and an owner ( Jordan) who will not spend the $$$$ on this team. No free agents will go to Charlotte and they will stink!!!
Nuggets are looking at a top 3 pick and the Bulls will give this up to get Melo. Also, Asik, the Turkish 7 foot center from Turkey has rights held by the Bulls. Yes, he is a miserable free throw center, but he is the starting center for Turkey whom the US beat a few weeks ago in the world championships, and he is young. Glad I’m not a Nuggets fan or I would scream at the thought of giving up Melo for “cap relief” in the form of Kirilenco without any major free agents available in the future. Denver fans, it looks like ownership merely wants to save $$$$$$$…sorry!

Glorilin307

You are correct. Ownership says they are looking for ” cap relief” to give the impression they will spend $$$$ in a few years on major free agents, but there are no “major” free agents on the horizon except for Chris Paul and he is looking east not west. So, in a few years when ownership says they will not overpay for mediocre free agents, the Nuggets fans will be stuck with a garbage team and ownership with profit, profit, profit…

Glorilin307

You are correct. Ownership says they are looking for ” cap relief” to give the impression they will spend $$$$ in a few years on major free agents, but there are no “major” free agents on the horizon except for Chris Paul and he is looking east not west. So, in a few years when ownership says they will not overpay for mediocre free agents, the Nuggets fans will be stuck with a garbage team and ownership with profit, profit, profit…

Drickle

All of the expiring contracts would equate to being well under the current salary cap at seasons end and a new CBA will fall into place before another season is played, so all of that cap space might be beneficial to other teams that will be looking to unload players to get under the cap. It would almost be like another form of free agency, which would certainly expand the list of available players.

Tom Fiore

Once again, probably not a good year to bump ticket prices by $5 a seat.
The problem with the NBA is that you need to be a large market team to be relevant anymore. The draft trys to even things up but what you see is temporary equity, like Melo in Denver and LeBron in Cleveland until they can get out, but unless the NBA can do something to create some sort of parity between small and large market teams then it will remain a game with five or six teams and a bunch of filler. The luxury tax is another try, but with LA willing to pay twice the salary cap and able to do so it becomes an imperfect solution at best.
We’ll see what the owners want to do after this season, but whatever they do it looks like there will be three more years of Miami vs. the Lakers with the rest of us around to watch in June. Maybe they should develop two sets of playoffs, one with the top four teams–the trophy should look like a gold bar–and then the regular one for the rest of the teams.

Tom Fiore

Once again, probably not a good year to bump ticket prices by $5 a seat.
The problem with the NBA is that you need to be a large market team to be relevant anymore. The draft trys to even things up but what you see is temporary equity, like Melo in Denver and LeBron in Cleveland until they can get out, but unless the NBA can do something to create some sort of parity between small and large market teams then it will remain a game with five or six teams and a bunch of filler. The luxury tax is another try, but with LA willing to pay twice the salary cap and able to do so it becomes an imperfect solution at best.
We’ll see what the owners want to do after this season, but whatever they do it looks like there will be three more years of Miami vs. the Lakers with the rest of us around to watch in June. Maybe they should develop two sets of playoffs, one with the top four teams–the trophy should look like a gold bar–and then the regular one for the rest of the teams.

Marky Markowitz

well someone needs to teach you fools apparently. loul deng is the kind of contract you CAN NOT have unless you have Cuban/Lakers/Knicks money (And it doesn’t make any sense to be over cap unless you are a legit top 5 contender, which is ironic for nugs because they were willing to go over when they couldn’t even win a playoff game and then became cap conscious while they were contenders). Denver is a mid-teir market and shouldn’t be expected to go much over the cap (5-10 million). You should have figured this out with the Kenyon Martin trade/signing that solid starter types making All-star money is a team killer (not to mention an ORL fan should know better with that albatross contract that Rashard has). The only thing good about Deng is that he is young enough that he COULD become a good 3 pt shooter to up his value.

Taj Gibson is a nice piece 3rd big type guy (Udonis haslemesque). Helpful, but not particularly hard to find an equivalent. And the Charlotte pick is even more protected than the GS picks. (And bulls picks are completely worthless since they would be mid to late 20s. Ask MEmphis how much they enjoyed the Lakers trashy picks)

This actually becomes a great move if Favors develops how some of the talent evaluators have talked about him (somewhere between Antonio McDyess, Al Horford, and D Howard, which sounds like Shawn Kemp to me) Plus he is Way cheaper than Loul Deng leaving more room for cap space. If they are smart they go the OKC way and find a way to trade chauncey for assets (Houston? for what Knicks gave up plus get rid of harrington) and probably trade NENE as well for some more assets. Then use the cap space as an asset as well taking on bad contracts for a year or two for 1st rd picks. They could be back in business by 2013 playoffs.

Marky Markowitz

well someone needs to teach you fools apparently. loul deng is the kind of contract you CAN NOT have unless you have Cuban/Lakers/Knicks money (And it doesn’t make any sense to be over cap unless you are a legit top 5 contender, which is ironic for nugs because they were willing to go over when they couldn’t even win a playoff game and then became cap conscious while they were contenders). Denver is a mid-teir market and shouldn’t be expected to go much over the cap (5-10 million). You should have figured this out with the Kenyon Martin trade/signing that solid starter types making All-star money is a team killer (not to mention an ORL fan should know better with that albatross contract that Rashard has). The only thing good about Deng is that he is young enough that he COULD become a good 3 pt shooter to up his value.

Taj Gibson is a nice piece 3rd big type guy (Udonis haslemesque). Helpful, but not particularly hard to find an equivalent. And the Charlotte pick is even more protected than the GS picks. (And bulls picks are completely worthless since they would be mid to late 20s. Ask MEmphis how much they enjoyed the Lakers trashy picks)

This actually becomes a great move if Favors develops how some of the talent evaluators have talked about him (somewhere between Antonio McDyess, Al Horford, and D Howard, which sounds like Shawn Kemp to me) Plus he is Way cheaper than Loul Deng leaving more room for cap space. If they are smart they go the OKC way and find a way to trade chauncey for assets (Houston? for what Knicks gave up plus get rid of harrington) and probably trade NENE as well for some more assets. Then use the cap space as an asset as well taking on bad contracts for a year or two for 1st rd picks. They could be back in business by 2013 playoffs.

Drickle

All of the expiring contracts would equate to being well under the current salary cap at seasons end and a new CBA will fall into place before another season is played, so all of that cap space might be beneficial to other teams that will be looking to unload players to get under the cap. It would almost be like another form of free agency, which would certainly expand the list of available players.

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.

Nicki Jhabvala is the Sports Digital News Editor for The Denver Post. Before arriving in Denver, she spent five years at Sports Illustrated working primarily as its online NBA editor, and she was most recently the overnight home page editor at the New York Times.